The present invention relates to pulsed lasers, specifically to the extraction of intense pulses using an intracavity photon deflector as a beam extractor. This invention could prove technically less difficult to manufacture and, therefore, more cost efficient than some existing pulsed laser technology. Pulsed lasers produce laser pulses having high peak power with short duration and have numerous applications in industry, education, and science.
Conventional methods of producing pulsed beams from laser cavities include Q-switching by means of acoustic-optic or electro-optic modulators and mode-locking. Such methods are relatively expensive to implement, requiring the use of special crystals and sophisticated electronics. The intracavity moving photon deflector is simple in design, produces a well-defined beam and does so with higher instantaneous output power than is possible by mechanically chopping the output beam of conventional lasers.
Where lasers are used as analytical tools, results are often limited by available optical power. In many applications, a train of laser pulses of high peak power might be preferable to a continuous beam of much lower power, even if the average power is lower. For example, biological samples are often degraded by heat, so that the intracavity photon deflector concept might allow an advantage in a particular analysis-such as Ramen spectroscopy-which would otherwise be impossible. The present invention could give rise to new analytical technology as well as being implemented to upgrade or retrofit existing equipment.
Physicists and engineers involved in developing laser technology face rapidly expanding application of lasers to meet human needs. Available laser technology tends to drive applications so that a new and useful laser concept with a particular set of beneficial characteristics would then lead to the development of suitable applications. There are probably many applications which will become apparent as we come to understand the characteristics of the deflected beam.
Further objectives and advantages of the invention will become apparent from a consideration of the drawings and ensuing description of it.